you really only disagree with how (and whether) it was applied in this instance.
That’s correct - I’m not arguing for a blanket ban on invective, just its widespread and inappropriate use. Persuasive argument has better long-term results than peer pressure.
Peer pressure through abuse is exclusionary - you may get compliance, but more often you simply turn people away from your group or cause. This creates the group phenonmenon of ‘evaporative cooling’ where more moderate members of a group leave and the group becomes smaller and more insular, which harms the group’s ability to interact with the outside world.
The argument you’re responding to sounds very similar to Bakunin’s “In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker” distinction between types of authority. Your disagreement with them also seems semantic rather than substantive. I don’t want to get into the weeds of your argument, only to point out that it appears to be a minor disagreement between people with similar values.
We exclude fascists, but I don’t want to encourage a particular anarchist orthodoxy, or even an anarchist orthodoxy on this instance. We’re openly welcoming to liberals here. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and the problems we face are large enough that we need large coalitions to fight them. Practicing disagreement without dissolution means both our ideas become more potent and our movements grow larger.
That’s correct - I’m not arguing for a blanket ban on invective, just its widespread and inappropriate use. Persuasive argument has better long-term results than peer pressure.
I would say that is empirically incorrect, at least in our current world. Many activist movements have seen far better results when they forgo reason and started inconveniencing others.
Evaporative cooling is a contributor to people leaving a movement, but empirically people also get drawn to movements and people when they act provocatively. This is a public forum, this conversation is also a play to anonymous lurkers, and I hope there are people who are surprised and intrigued by the notion that it is so natural for children not to defer to parents’ authority that accepting parental abuse is dumb.
Those people that get drawn to a movement are often unaware or disagree with its tenets, sparking more discussion and re-evaluation, re-heating the mixture. If you try to go for mass appeal, people will walk away disillusioned that nobody here seems to actually believe the punk in solarpunk. Similar to how Clinton lost voters by seeming to take politically disgruntled people that voted for Obama for granted.
I disagree that it is abuse, though, and I would not want to abuse people for the sake of popularity or ideological pursuasion. If you’re not arguing for a blanket ban on invectives, then I’m curious what makes you draw the line that this is abusive when other invectives wouldn’t be.
The argument you’re responding to sounds very similar to Bakunin’s […] distinction between types of authority.
But if people are free to leave a community and suffer no consequences for it, and staying in the community does have a consequence - accepting abusive behavior by other community members, for instance - people will leave. It’s normal, it’s understandable, and it inevitably breaks down communities. And that’s why I don’t think the authors’ understanding of community is at all wrong. In the long run everybody finds themselves in situations where they have to submit to their community’s authority in order to remain in the community. And when people leave instead of submitting, that breaks community, and everyone, especially the children, suffer for it.
It is literally arguing for accepting abusive behavior from group authorities for the sake of group cohesion. That is the sort of authority they want parents to have over children and elders over parents. Accept abuse so you don’t rock the boat. Stay with abusive parents because they deserve to raise you even if they are abusive. Stay with abusive community leaders because the community deserves to persist so it can abuse more people into the future.
That is not Bakunin.
We exclude fascists, but I don’t want to encourage a particular anarchist orthodoxy, or even an anarchist orthodoxy on this instance.
I am not an admin or a mod. Treating my comment like an acceptable part of the discourse does not mean encouraging (a particular) anarchist orthodoxy, as long as similar discourse is accepted from people with different political leanings. I wouldn’t describe myself as orthodox either, I just don’t like abusive relationships. It is not my intention or expectation to scare them off, just to get them to re-evaluate deeply held beliefs.
We’re openly welcoming to liberals here. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and the problems we face are large enough that we need large coalitions to fight them. Practicing disagreement without dissolution means both our ideas become more potent and our movements grow larger.
I honestly blame the current unpopularity of the left (the proper left) as a political movement among the general public on this attitude. Being willing to water down your supposedly deeply held philosophical convictions for the sake of appealing to centrists makes it look like the convictions are just a charade, and that any promise you make, no matter how ideologically driven, can be traded off for just a little more influence. As labor parties in the UK, Netherlands, and elsewhere were happy to demonstrate in 1980-2018.
Disagreement without dissolution can be a useful skill when you’re making practical decisions under time pressure, such as in a coalition government or a friend group deciding what movie to go to. As a user posting here out of my own urge for politically meaningful conversation, I am not under time pressure. If this thread ended, I would find another. I can disagree without dissolution, it’s just not what I’m here for. If you happen to know anywhere that does encourage discussion that seeks to dissolve disagreement, I would love to know about it.
And if you do want this to be a safe haven for liberals, then I wish you luck 7½ years from now when you’re asked to please not say that library economies are a fundamental part of solarpunk because it would scare off moderates and reduce AOC’s chances in the Democratic primaries. Solarpunk is already being co-opted as the new cyberpunk - an aesthetic with a vague ‘rebellious’ tween attitude engaging in ‘green’ consumerism and YIMBY-ing state-subsidized corporate greenwashing with all their might.
You would be right, an openly solarpunk Democratic senator and primary candidate would be very potent and indicate a very large movement compared to what solarpunk is today. And maybe you would have practiced disagreement without dissolution so much that you would even be proud and happy to see the movement grow so far.
That’s correct - I’m not arguing for a blanket ban on invective, just its widespread and inappropriate use. Persuasive argument has better long-term results than peer pressure.
Peer pressure through abuse is exclusionary - you may get compliance, but more often you simply turn people away from your group or cause. This creates the group phenonmenon of ‘evaporative cooling’ where more moderate members of a group leave and the group becomes smaller and more insular, which harms the group’s ability to interact with the outside world.
The argument you’re responding to sounds very similar to Bakunin’s “In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker” distinction between types of authority. Your disagreement with them also seems semantic rather than substantive. I don’t want to get into the weeds of your argument, only to point out that it appears to be a minor disagreement between people with similar values.
We exclude fascists, but I don’t want to encourage a particular anarchist orthodoxy, or even an anarchist orthodoxy on this instance. We’re openly welcoming to liberals here. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and the problems we face are large enough that we need large coalitions to fight them. Practicing disagreement without dissolution means both our ideas become more potent and our movements grow larger.
I would say that is empirically incorrect, at least in our current world. Many activist movements have seen far better results when they forgo reason and started inconveniencing others.
Evaporative cooling is a contributor to people leaving a movement, but empirically people also get drawn to movements and people when they act provocatively. This is a public forum, this conversation is also a play to anonymous lurkers, and I hope there are people who are surprised and intrigued by the notion that it is so natural for children not to defer to parents’ authority that accepting parental abuse is dumb.
Those people that get drawn to a movement are often unaware or disagree with its tenets, sparking more discussion and re-evaluation, re-heating the mixture. If you try to go for mass appeal, people will walk away disillusioned that nobody here seems to actually believe the punk in solarpunk. Similar to how Clinton lost voters by seeming to take politically disgruntled people that voted for Obama for granted.
I disagree that it is abuse, though, and I would not want to abuse people for the sake of popularity or ideological pursuasion. If you’re not arguing for a blanket ban on invectives, then I’m curious what makes you draw the line that this is abusive when other invectives wouldn’t be.
This is a quote from another comment by the same OP under this post:
It is literally arguing for accepting abusive behavior from group authorities for the sake of group cohesion. That is the sort of authority they want parents to have over children and elders over parents. Accept abuse so you don’t rock the boat. Stay with abusive parents because they deserve to raise you even if they are abusive. Stay with abusive community leaders because the community deserves to persist so it can abuse more people into the future.
That is not Bakunin.
I am not an admin or a mod. Treating my comment like an acceptable part of the discourse does not mean encouraging (a particular) anarchist orthodoxy, as long as similar discourse is accepted from people with different political leanings. I wouldn’t describe myself as orthodox either, I just don’t like abusive relationships. It is not my intention or expectation to scare them off, just to get them to re-evaluate deeply held beliefs.
I honestly blame the current unpopularity of the left (the proper left) as a political movement among the general public on this attitude. Being willing to water down your supposedly deeply held philosophical convictions for the sake of appealing to centrists makes it look like the convictions are just a charade, and that any promise you make, no matter how ideologically driven, can be traded off for just a little more influence. As labor parties in the UK, Netherlands, and elsewhere were happy to demonstrate in 1980-2018.
Disagreement without dissolution can be a useful skill when you’re making practical decisions under time pressure, such as in a coalition government or a friend group deciding what movie to go to. As a user posting here out of my own urge for politically meaningful conversation, I am not under time pressure. If this thread ended, I would find another. I can disagree without dissolution, it’s just not what I’m here for. If you happen to know anywhere that does encourage discussion that seeks to dissolve disagreement, I would love to know about it.
And if you do want this to be a safe haven for liberals, then I wish you luck 7½ years from now when you’re asked to please not say that library economies are a fundamental part of solarpunk because it would scare off moderates and reduce AOC’s chances in the Democratic primaries. Solarpunk is already being co-opted as the new cyberpunk - an aesthetic with a vague ‘rebellious’ tween attitude engaging in ‘green’ consumerism and YIMBY-ing state-subsidized corporate greenwashing with all their might.
You would be right, an openly solarpunk Democratic senator and primary candidate would be very potent and indicate a very large movement compared to what solarpunk is today. And maybe you would have practiced disagreement without dissolution so much that you would even be proud and happy to see the movement grow so far.